Corporations Act 2001

Subject to subsections (2) and (2A), a managed investment scheme must be registered under section 601EB if:

it has more than 20 members; or

it was promoted by a person, or an associate of a person, who was, when the scheme was promoted, in the business of promoting managed investment schemes; or

a determination under subsection (3) is in force in relation to the scheme and the total number of members of all of the schemes to which the determination relates exceeds 20.

A managed investment scheme does not have to be registered if all the issues of interests in the scheme that have been made would not have required the giving of a Product Disclosure Statement under Division 2 of Part 7.9 if the scheme had been registered when the issues were made.

A notified foreign passport fund does not have to be registered.

ASIC may, in writing, determine that a number of managed investment schemes are closely related and that each of them has to be registered at any time when the total number of members of all of the schemes exceeds 20. ASIC must give written notice of the determination to the operator of each of the schemes.

For the purpose of this section, when working out how many members a scheme has:

joint holders of an interest in the scheme count as a single member; and

an interest in the scheme held on trust for a beneficiary is taken to be held by the beneficiary (rather than the trustee) if:

the beneficiary is presently entitled to a share of the trust estate or of the income of the trust estate; or

the beneficiary is, individually or together with other beneficiaries, in a position to control the trustee.

A person must not operate in this jurisdiction a managed investment scheme that this section requires to be registered under section 601EB unless the scheme is so registered.

Failure to comply with this subsection is an offence: see subsection 1311(1).

For the purpose of subsection (5), a person is not operating a scheme merely because:

they are acting as an agent or employee of another person; or

they are taking steps to wind up the scheme or remedy a defect that led to the scheme being deregistered.

A person who would otherwise contravene subsection (5) because an interest in a scheme is held in trust for 2 or more beneficiaries (see paragraph (4)(b)) does not contravene that subsection if they prove that they did not know, and had no reason to suspect, that the interest was held in that way.

In criminal proceedings, a defendant in the prosecution of an offence under subsection (5) bears an evidential burden in relation to the matter in subsection (7). See subsection 13.3(3) of the Criminal Code.

A person contravenes this subsection if the person contravenes subsection (5).

This subsection is a civil penalty provision (see section 1317E).